Headlines

The Aspen Times January 4. 1990 • 31 -B

blowing smoke

bruno kirchenwitz

paving paradise

A happy new decade, a hope¬
ful new year, the ’80s are over,
the ’90s are here. Yet for our fair
valley Hwy 82 is still with us. In
1990 we are going to start sol¬
ving our transportation problem
by beginning to four-lane all of
Hwy 82. Or are we? Let’s take a
closer look at this adventure in
concrete creation we are about
to undertake.

Along the 18 miles of the high¬
way between Basalt and Aspen
there are in excess of 180 dead-
stop entry/exits. The Environ¬
mental Impact Statement of
August ’89, which contains
around 500 pages, doesn’t seem
to address this aspect of the pro¬
ject. No mention of overpasses or
frontage roads to allow access to
our worker bee autobahn. Did I
miss some fine print?

Or is the state highway
department ready to clone, on a
much grander scale, its recent

engineering fiasco known as the
Basalt by-pass? A bypass that
traps and kills deer and mur¬
ders motorists due to its design.
An “improvement’’ that has
created more problems than it
has solved. While the Basalt
boondoggle took only a year or so
to build, four-laning 82 will last
well into the 21st century. And
could even the most twisted of
minds conjure a better way to
shatter worker bee morale than
by doubling their commute time
to work every day for the next
15-20 years?

Besides delays to traffic, this
project will encroach on or force
relocation of homes and busines¬
ses, impact historic sites,
destroy wetlands, encroach on
recreational and open space
sites, cause sedimentation of the
Roaring Fork River throughout
the entire project, destroy wild
life habitat, kill more wildlife via
vehicle collisions and generally
degrade the visual quality of the
Roaring Fork Valley. As for the
benefits, I guess we can have
lots of extra vehicles on the road
piling into Aspen. Also it’s sup¬
posed to be safer.

Now I don’t have any doubt
that four-laning will dramatical¬

ly increase use. Rut as for being
safer, I’m afraid the death toll on
Killer 82 will increase along
with its capacity to carry traffic.
And all those added cars aren’t
going to be welcome in Aspen,
are they?

Bigger is not always better.
There are many portions of Hwy
82 where widening or adding
lanes is entirely appropriate.
Work on sections like Brush
Creek to Aspen and east of the
Basalt bypass to Old Snowmass
should begin immediately. How¬
ever, the total four-laning of
Hwy 82 is economically, envir¬
onmentally and socially
counter-productive. Wake up,
people! We’re not just going to
pave the road to Paradise, we’re
about to pave over Paradise!

Our transportation problem
will not be solved by building an
LA freeway in our pristine
mountain valley. The answer
lies in more public transporta¬
tion and more affordable hives
for worker bees near Aspen. Not
in more concrete.

We had best be careful lest in
20 years we look around us and
find we have paved Paradise
and are left with only a parking
lot.

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